The Beach House
by unknownbyhim22
Summary: ONESHOT! Gabriella is forced to take a vacation after her work brings her a tradgic discovery, but her vacation is turned into another case when she finds out that an old friend had everything to do with the murder of her best friend.


**Hey everyone! It's been crazy lately, which resulted in me not updating! I've had this ONESHOT saved in my computer for a while now, but I didn't think it was good enough to post because it moved too fast, but I was worried you guys would forget about me if I didn't post something soon! My favorite TV show is BONES, so this is a HSM version of it... kind of. I hope to post a story soon! Enjoy!**

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The Beach House

When she was sixteen, she graduated from high school, leaving her friends, meeting a stranger, and adventuring on a long road to become a Forensic Anthropologist. And now she was twenty six with a gun in her nightstand drawer and a library full of knowledge in her head that would last her a lifetime.

She was lonely though, which counted for nothing other than little distraction from her work. Her coworkers at the lab had told her to take a well deserved vacation after an ugly case that resulted in her identifying her former high school best friend floating in a muddy swamp.

So here she was, sitting in an air conditioned beach house that she rented out all for herself. The TV was on, a puddle of suntan lotion thinned out on the kitchen table where she accidentally spilt some earlier that morning, and her hair was being pulled into a messy bun as she talked to someone on speaker phone.

"But, Ms. Montez, you're on vacation, you can't come home!" the deep voice bounced against the walls and to her ears as she rolled her eyes.

"This is barbaric, I've been here long enough to know that thong bikinis are not for me, besides, you need me there," she said as she pushed her feet into her black work shoes.

"We don't, now if you want to keep your job you're going to do as I say and take a break, do you understand?"

Gabriella Montez glared at the phone, putting her hands on her fully clothed hips as she sighed.

"Fine, but I'm never leaving the lab again once I get there. The case better be solved when I get home," she snapped, closing the phone quickly before her boss had time to fire her for her lack of people skills.

There was a gawking sound that traveled though the screened back door that lead out to the beach and Gabriella raised her eyebrows when she saw a pelican sitting contently on her back porch. She slumped into her kitchen chair and watched it with a frown, feeling sweat forming on her forehead because of the layers of clothing she was currently in. There had to be something to do on a beach for a well known Forensic Anthropologist, _other_ that finding dead things in the sand.

"Well," Gabriella sighed as she slid off her jacket. "I guess I'm going to have to act like a normal person."

Because talking to yourself is definitely not normal.

***

Gabriella sat on her low beach chair, twisting her feet in the warm sand as she read a book on nothing other than murder. Her sun hat shaded her shoulders, her medium-sized sunglasses shielded the sun, and her one pieced bathing suit made her skin look paler than it used to be.

There was a lone heron standing by the edge of the water, staring down into the water as if waiting for lunch to swim right to it. A couple walked past, scaring it further into the waves and just as Gabriella was about to finish the last sentence of the last paragraph of her book, she was suddenly collided into by a very sweaty, stupid, self absorbed man.

"Are you okay, I should have just let the volleyball hit you instead of trying to block it," the man trailed off when he saw the annoyed look on the familiar face as the girl he had just tripped over stood up from the sand, her crinkled sun hat in her sandy hand.

"Yes that would have been preferred, thank you very much," Gabriella replied, positioning her sunglasses back over her eyes, not caring to look at the man as she brushed her legs off.

"I'm sorry, but do I know you from somewhere?" The man asked, his shaggy hair was clearly sticking to his sweaty forehead as his young eyes looked at her face.

"What genre do you read?" She sighed, walking back over to her lawn chair to collect her scattered things from the beach.

"Excuse me?" He asked dumbly, making her sigh.

"I write books, maybe that's were you know me from," she explained, folding up her lawn chair and grabbing her suntan lotion to put in her bag.

"No, that's not it," he laughed, tilting his head to the side to get a better look at her.

Gabriella looked up as she pulled her bag over her shoulder and her face slowly contorted into a recognizable look: she knew who he was and her lips curled slightly upwards.

"David Patterson," she answered, making him smile.

"Gabriella Damn Montez," he said back to her, making her laugh.

"You know, that's not a good way to great an old friend," Gabriella said as she turned to walked back to her beach house, hearing him follow her with an eager tint to his voice.

"It is when the last thing you remember about them was a slap in the face and a very angry string of curse words," he laughed, walking next to her now. "How've you been since then anyways?"

"Very successful," she replied boastfully with no intention to sound modest. "And you?"

"The opposite, but I'm not complaining. I get to be on the beach all day," he answered her, "but what are you doing here, you hate beaches."

"I'm on a forced vacation."

"Forced?"

"My boss made me go for the goodness of my health."

Gabriella pulled the back door open to her beach house and gestured for him to come in as she tossed her chair and bags to the ground behind her. David walked in with a surprised expression and looked around the house with a smirk.

"How is everyone at work no-a-days? Grumpy as usual?"

"They're dead." Gabriella replied seriously, pulling out two glasses from the cupboard.

He chuckled, sending her eyes to focus on him as he sat down in the barstool across from her.

"I mean the breathing ones," he smiled.

She shrugged, setting the glass, now full of lemonade, in front of him.

"They're the same, I suppose. I'm probably the grumpy one now," she nodded.

"No."

The sarcasm in his voice made her roll her eyes and lean against the kitchen counter so that she could take a sip of her lemonade without looking at him. She didn't like seeing the man who betrayed her years ago in college, but yet again, it was nice to know that she became so much more than he did. He cleared his throat, interrupting her flashbacks of the two of them.

"So I heard about Kelsi," he said in a soft tone, looking at her with saddened eyes.

"Yeah," Gabriella nodded, tracing her finger along her glass where water was condensing on the sides, dripping occasionally on her feet, cooling them down. She hadn't talked to anyone about the death of her friend, but that was mainly because she couldn't, the case wasn't solved yet. "It's too bad."

"I'm sure she'd be glad to know you're working on the case," David said with a smile.

"David, I wish I could talk to you about this, but I can't, I'm sorry," she said quickly, turning around from leaning against the counter so that she could dump her lemonade into the sink, already having lost her thirst for it.

"Hey, don't feel sorry. I'm just sorry I trampled you out there," he said as he stood up, leaving the lemonade. "How about you meet me on the beach tonight for the bonfire and we'll forget this ever came up."

Gabriella looked over at him as he backed up to the door, giving her a hopeful look.

"Want me to bring anything?"

He laughed, putting his hand to his chest.

"What kind of host would I be if I made you bring anything?"

"When haven't you made me to bring something to one of your wild parties?" She asked with a laugh as he shrugged, jogging out of the house, onto the beach where the group of guys he was playing volleyball with earlier were now waiting for him.

***

The party was in full swing when Gabriella made her way down to the beach, a pair of jeans and a black tank top on. The sun was already set, the moon now casting a white light on the sand, helping Gabriella make her way to the large fire that burned among the drunken twenty-some year olds who all were friends of David's.

"Montez!" David shouted when he finally saw her. "I didn't think you'd come!"

"I wasn't going to, but these parties are just too loud to avoid!" Gabriella shouted back since it was hard to hear with all of the people talking and the loud music blaring.

"I am known for the loudest parties, so that's the greatest complement," he smiled, handing her a beer that he knew she probably wouldn't drink.

"You know, I came here to relax, not party, so you owe me," she said jokingly, glancing at his bare chest that glistened with what she assumed was a mixture of ocean water, sweat, and beer.

"Come on, Montez, stop worrying," he said, being pulled into the crowd by a female hand that had Gabriella laughing to herself and shaking her head as she surveyed the party.

It had been two hours before Gabriella had another chance to talk to David. He had been trying to convince the cops that came an hour earlier that the noise level wasn't worth arresting him over and after getting out of the arrest and sending everyone away, he and Gabriella had decided to take the long walk back to her place.

"You know, I never thought I'd see you again." David said as they walked side by side down the long beach, making small talk.

"To be honest, I wish that was the case… that you never did," Gabriella said honestly, looking over at him as his cool arm brushed against hers for the hundredth time since they started their walk. Her skin tingled against his touch.

"Ouch, Montez, way to hurt a man's self esteem," he laughed, nudging her jokingly. "So why didn't you ever want to see me again? Are you afraid you'll fall in love with me again?" He smiled.

"No, definitely not." Gabriella replied as they stopped on her porch, face to face as they talked.

He looked her in the eyes, smiling at her still as she stood with her arms crossed stubbornly across her chest. He brushed a piece of hair away from her face and gently ran his thumb against her check.

"You have a guy waiting for you at home, don't you?" He asked, seeing the way she was clearly uninterested.

"No, what makes you think that?"

He chuckled.

"Because you haven't kissed me yet," David said quietly with a wink, "You're usually the one to make the first move."

Gabriella's mouth fell open slightly at his bold attempt to win her over and as he moved one step closer to her, she decided to take the chance, to be someone no one thought she was and she kissed him, roughly and in control like it didn't matter that he wasn't the guy he used to be.

He ran his hand through her hair as he kissed her back, grabbing the door handle of the porch door so that they could make their way back inside, but when they clumsily stepped through the door, they hit something that was knocked over on the ground, breaking apart as a result.

"What the—"

Gabriella gasped as she saw that the beach house that was perfectly in order before she left for the party was now destroyed as if someone had broken in when she was gone. She instantly went forward, ignoring David's cautious warning not to go any further, but she wasn't afraid of much, so she stepped over the broken glass and furniture to see what the burglar wanted so badly.

"My guns gone," she said as she came back into the main room where David was still standing somewhat nervous looking. "And my phone," she told him, remembering that when she left, the phone was on the kitchen table.

"I'm calling the police," David said, pulling his phone out of his back pocket.

"Forget the police," she said as she took the phone from him, "I'm calling the FBI."

***

The red and blue lights on the top of the police cars twinkled against the white paint of the calm-on-the-outside beach house that sat at the water's edge. Gabriella stood with her arms crossed as she listened to the police converse with the few FBI agents that had decided to come to her rescue.

At the end of the room her partner stood with a furrowed expression as he jotted down notes in his wrinkled notepad and when he saw her looking over at him he responded with a discreet nod. Gabriella frowned, turning to David.

"Want to take a walk?" She asked him, her eyes stinging with anger and pent up emotions that were now just coming to the surface.

"I don't think they're going to like it if we just disappear," David answered, the collected expression on his face didn't match how his voice sounded when he spoke to her, but she chose to ignore her gut in the mean time.

"I have connections, we won't get in trouble," she answered, leaving the room anyway, stepping onto the porch and down the stairs until her feet meet the sand for only the forth time that day.

"You're not going any further?" he asked, stopping next to her while she stared out at the crashing waves.

"You know," Gabriella started, finding the question rhetorical. "I just wanted a vacation."

He chuckled next to her, the rumble of his voice box sending chills to appear on her skin.

"I thought it was a forced vacation," he smiled, nudging her with his elbow as if she would laugh a little with him and forget the chaos inside.

She stepped in front of him, turning so that she could get a good look at him and he seemed to be confused as she shook her head at him.

"In any case, I wish it didn't turn out like this," she told him, hearing the short squeak of the porch door and then her partner's footsteps on the stairs.

The intense blue eyes of the FBI agent she had known for years had her heart pumping immediately, but she accepted the adrenaline rush as David looked at him, his expression changing to guilt.

"David Patterson," Gabriella's partner began, grabbing David's arm firmly. "You're under arrest for the break in of this home and of the murder of Kelsi Neilson."

"You bitch," was all David could muster up as he was jerked away from her, his face now smeared with sick pleasure that went along with his actions.

Gabriella could only watch, her body numb as she was left alone in the back, seeing David struggling to get free, only to be easily pushed forward by her partner, who was stronger than him in more than one way. She turned around, heading away from the beach house towards the ocean so that she could hear nothing but relaxing crashes of water against the sand.

She waited, for a sign maybe, of what she should do next, who she should call or talk to about the murder of her old best friend, one who was taken away from her by an ex-boyfriend.

The only sign she got was from the man who sat next to her; the man who was there for her whenever she needed someone to sit with her.

"Hey, stranger," Gabriella smiled softly at him, seeing his sad expression.

"How was the vacation?" he asked, bumping his shoulder against hers for comfort.

"Not for me," she replied, tucking her hair behind her ear. "The criminals always tend to find me."

"How'd you know, Montez? That he was the one who killed Kelsi?"

"He knew about it," she answered. "He just knew about it."

Her partner nodded, wrapping his arm over her shoulder to pull her in for a quick hug. His scent comforted her and reminded her of the times when she wasn't afraid of so much. The strength in his arm that rested on her made her feel safe even though she had been mingling with a murderer all weekend while she was supposed to be vacationing.

Pecking him on the check, she stood, pulling him up with her as a chuckle escaped his lips.

"Come on Bolton, we have a job to do."

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**Much love,**

**unknownbyhim22**


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